Former ICANN chairman notes some surprises today, but says he’s still digesting all of the data.

Peter Dengate Thrush was chairman of ICANN’s board when it finally approved the new top level domain plan. Now he’s with Top Level Domain Holdings (TLDH), which is one of the biggest applicants for new top level domains. It is applying for 68 on its own accord and 92 in total.

I just got off the phone with Dengate Thrush and asked him what the biggest surprises were in today’s reveal.

“We’re still digesting it ourselves,” he told me. “But there were quite some surprises.”

Among those:

* There’s only one applicant for .orange and .apple
* That there weren’t more internationalized domain names (IDNs), although he’s pleased there are over 100
* Only three applicants requested community support

He is happy with the breadth of brands participating in the process. But what about the noticeably absent brands such as Facebook, Twitter, and eBay?

“I think they got some bad advice,” he said.

During a panel discussion at today’s ICANN even, Dengate Thrush inquired about digital archery. His company has come out opposed to the system for batching applications. He reminded me that he was at the helm of ICANN’s board when the system was devised. “But we now have a huge amount of data that we didn’t have when we put it [the plan] together,” he said.

For example, there’s no need to spend resources for 92 technical reviews of its applications as they are basically all the same.

As for TLDH’s applications, he said its preliminary count shows 10 of its applications are uncontested and another 10 are only challenged by one party. Now the negotiating can begin, and he says he’s already received an email from another applicant saying “let’s talk”.

“Many of these [competitors] are reasonable commercial people,” he said. He’s confident they can work out a solution and that auctions are a last resort — although TLDH is prepared to go to auction when necessary.

Conflict of interest, whether real or imagined, looks bad for ICANN as it faces fresh criticism over its new TLD plans.

ICANN has a problem.

As criticism mounts against its approval of the new top level domain name program, somegroups are pointing fingers at an inherent conflict of interest.

The key example is former ICANN Chairman of the Board Peter Dengate Thrush.

One month after pushing through a vote on the new TLD program in his last meeting as Chairman he took a role with publicly-traded Top Level Domain Holdings, a company focused solely on profiting from new top level domain names.

There are no rules prohibiting this move, as Dengate Thrush pointed out when I interviewed him about the new role.

I can’t blame him for jumping at the opportunity. I also don’t think putting the program up for a vote in June had anything to do with profiting from it — I think it had to do with getting the program approved before his term as Chairman was over.

But it doesn’t matter. The problem is it just looks bad.

Recently Internet Advertising Bureau joined Association of National Advertisers in opposing the new top level domains program. Interestingly, I haven’t seen them point to this specific conflict. But other groups, including Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, have.

ICANN has received plenty of pushback on its new TLD plans both during the process of creating the applicant rules as well as after it was approved. Everyone has an opinion, and it would be wrong to point to Dengate Thrush’s move as proof that this is just a money grab.

But that won’t stop people from bringing attention to it, and that will bad for ICANN.

Peter Dengate Thrush joins publicly traded company poised to profit from new top level domain names.

That was quick.

Less than a month after pushing through a vote approving the new top level domain name program at his last meeting as ICANN Chairman, Peter Dengate Thrush has joined a company applying for new top level domain names.

This is certainly a big coup for Top Level Domain Holdings. But it also begs the question about why Dengate Thrush pushed through the vote in his last meeting as Chair. It’s highly likely that it was so it would be part of his legacy, but joining a new TLD applicant so quickly after the vote will certainly raise eyebrows.

It makes you wonder if ICANN staffers that remain with the non-profit during the new TLD gold rush are fools for doing so. Certainly there’s more money on the outside, at least during the application process.

Internet Commerce Association counsel Philip Corwin has sent a letter (pdf) to ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom and Chairman of the Board Peter Dengate-Thrush asking it to act on Czech Arbitration Court’s new UDRP policy.

Czech Arbitration Court (CAC), one of the newest UDRP providers, proposed a new scheme in which it would charge only 500 EUR to file a domain name complaint and arbitrators would not spend as much time on cases.

Counsel for CAC posted a comment on Domain Name Wire’s earlier story on the proposal, stating that it would not move forward without ICANN’s blessing. Instead, before getting final word from ICANN, CAC made a few changes to the proposal and announced it was going forward with our without ICANN’s approval.

So far, ICANN has not made any public comment on CAC’s move that I’m aware of. It was briefly discussed in another context on the first day of ICANN’s meeting in Nariobi.